More than 5.8 million Americans have heart failure (e.g., congestive heart failure). Heart failure is a complex clinical syndrome which results from structural and functional disorders of the heart associated with a variety of cardiovascular diseases. Heart failure is mainly characterized by a condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to the rest of the body. Although various therapies for heart failure may be used to manage the disease, heart failure has no cure.
The main limitations of current pharmacological, interventional, and operative therapies is their inability to compensate the irreversible loss of functional cardiomyocytes. Stem cell based therapies address this limitation by providing a means for the regeneration of cardiomyocytes and/or myocardial tissue to restore cardiac function.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for isolated cardiac stem cells and methods for isolating cardiac stem cells. Additionally, there is a need in the art for stem cells and methods useful for treating heart failure and other cardiac diseases. The present invention meets this need by providing isolated cardiac stem cells. The present invention further provides cells and methods useful for treating heart failure and other cardiac diseases.